No. 283
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 01, 2015

Her Last Quadrille.

The bursting of an artery due to tight lacing causes the death of Miss Mary Crawford of Detroit, Mic
December 1, 2015
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Via Newspapers.comThis tale of strange goings-on in a seemingly unremarkable apartment was told in the “Western Mail,” March 10, 1927:An extraordinary story of queer happenings in an unoccupied Fulham (England) flat was told recently by a foreman and two workmen who have been decorating it (declares the "London Daily News").One of the men mentioned to the foreman some days ago that when working
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Strange Company - 6/10/2026
"As his son I am proud of hisefforts to succeed in life"Jefferson Randolph Smith IIIArtifact #93-2Jeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge) oapy's son hires a legal firm to stop the defamation of his father's name. At age 30, Jefferson Randolph Smith III, Soapy and Mary's oldest son, was protecting his father's legacy and his mother's reputation from "libel" and scandal. He was also
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
You can see it peeking out from the Harlem River Drive or through the chain-link fence of the Third Avenue Bridge: a five-story red brick building almost buried behind glass and steel apartment towers. The towers are newish luxury rental residences built on the Bronx side of the Harlem River. Shiny and modern, they bring […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/8/2026
Youth With Executioner by Nuremberg native Albrecht Dürer … although it’s dated to 1493, which was during a period of several years when Dürer worked abroad. November 13 [1617]. Burnt alive here a miller of Manberna, who however was lately … Continue reading
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
In 1830, Joseph Knapp conspired with his brother, John Francis Knapp, to hire a local criminal, Richard Crowninshield, to murder their great uncle, Captain Joseph White, in Salem, Massachusetts. They believed that if the captain died without a will, they stood to inherit a sizable fortune.Read the full story here: "A Most Extraordinary Case"
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/6/2026
As Mr. Moody for the Prosecution dramatically expounds on hatchets and grisly details, and a glimpse of two skulls in a leather case, Lizzie slumps over in her chair. Was it the heat or the ghastly descriptions?
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/7/2026
  [Editor’s note: Guest writer, Peter Dickson, lives in West Sussex, England and has been working with microfilm copies of The Duncan Campbell Papers from the State Library of NSW, Sydney, Australia. The following are some of his analyses of what he has discovered from reading these papers. Dickson has contributed many transcriptions to the Jamaica […]
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Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
Absolutely Pure. | Fierce Football.

Her Last Quadrille.

Her Last Quadrille

The bursting of an artery due to tight lacing causes the death of Miss Mary Crawford of Detroit, Mich. 

The craze for slender waists found a victim Saturday night at Detroit, Mich., in Miss Mary Crawford, who was attending a dance. In the midst of the quadrille she suddenly cried and fell, but was caught by her partner, who carried her to a lounge, where she seemingly fainted. It was found impossible to resuscitate her, and a physician was summoned who pronounced the young lady dead. An examination revealed the fact that she had died from tight lacing, the stays in her corsets having been drawn so tightly that her flesh lay in folds beneath, so that the exertion of dancing caused the bursting of a blood vessel. Miss Crawford was to have been married today, and her betrothed is completely prostrated.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, October 6, 1888.